More in this series
A Conversation With PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2019 Author JP Infante
“When you’re a kid you’re not sure if you don’t know something because you haven’t been taught it or because you’re not supposed to know.”
PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2019
Dominican Writers
Kweli Journal, The Poetry Project, Uptown Collective, Dominican Writers, POST(blank)The Manhattan Times
Kweli Journal.
You’ve thought about jumping.
It’s a cold winter night. You sit next to Queeny on your fire escape. The cars on the freeway come and go like waves. The lights from the George Washington Bridge reflect off the Hudson River like the shine in glassy eyes. The river is a giant bathtub without a ship or boat to save anyone who might be drowning.
Your babysitter, Nilda, says suicide is like killing someone, and if you were to survive jumping off the fire escape, the police would arrest you for attempted murder. If you do try killing yourself, you plan to live through it because suicide only works if you survive. Nilda laughed when you told her the attempt is meant to get people’s attention. She laughed because it’s true.
You feel the cold wind. Look at the buildings across the river in New Jersey. They are far apart with too much space in between. There’s no space between you and Queeny because you both need the warmth.
They used to call you Minene, and, before that, Chungo, even though your birth certificate says another name. Your stepfather, who’s been away at school for three months, calls you son. Son, get me the TV controller. Son, listen to your mother. Son, stop talking about your heart.
School Days The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
youyou
School Days
Kweli
Noon
The Aster(ix) Journal
Digging Through the Fat: A Literary & Arts Journal for Cultural Omnivores
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A Roundtable With the PEN America Best Debut Short Stories Judges: Sabrina Orah Mark, Emily Nemens, and Deesha Philyaw
Many of the stories felt written on the edge of an edge of an edge of a world.
On “getting creatively lost”: Robert J. Dau Prize Winner Mathapelo Mofokeng
Learn about Mathapelo Mofokeng’s short story “The Strong-Strong Winds,” which was selected for ‘Best Debut Short Stories 2021.’
“The most innocent thing you can do is want to create”: Robert J. Dau Prize Winner Isaac Hughes Green
Learn about Isaac Hughes Green’s short story “The First Time I Said It,” which was selected for ‘Best Debut Short Stories 2021.’
More in this series
A Conversation With PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2018 Author Grayson Morley
“When writing this story, I was thinking explicitly about a tendency in players to play games as murderous kleptomaniacs.”
A Conversation With PEN America Best Debut Short Stories 2019 Author Sarah Curry
“I slowly connected the dots that nearly all my friends—no matter what continent we had been on—had experienced some level of sexual violence.”
A Conversation With Best Debut Short Stories 2020 Author Valerie Hegarty
“Some studies have actually found that a cat's purring can help mend broken bones.”